Oh, how good to know I'm not the only one who finds Alagna sexy! Loved Aida...just one familiar tune after another. But Amonasro deserves the Worst-Father-of-the-Year Award. The way he plays the guilt card to manipulate his own daughter into helping him in a war HE started but couldn't win, well, you can't get much lower than that. (Well, you CAN, of course, but you know what I mean.)

I wonder if anyone has ever done one of those bare-stage productions of Aida. I don't see how it could be possible.

I saw Alagna a few weeks ago in L'elisir d'amore at Covent Garden. A lot of the time he was wearing a vest and a trilby - uncannily resembling Chico Marx - but he was in good voice. I'd have thought that Radames would be a bit of a stretch for him. Lorna - I do like quite a lot of Aida but I don't go out of my way to see it.

Early last week, I saw a PBS show about the (current?) Ring cycle at the Me,t and how it was produced. While I am sure it is an artistic tour de force, I keep thinking that it was special effects for the sake of special effects, so complex that the singers couldn't always handle thing--the Brunhilde, for instance, fell off of those great rotating things at one point, and near the end of Das Rheingold the rainbow bridge didn't work, leaving the cast to improvise their trip to Valhalla.

Considering the costs the production must have--hundreds of stagehands just to make the Rhine look watery, for instance--one can see why the Met loses money all the time.

That's hard to pin down. He's not getting any younger, and he's certainly not a handsome man. But he has presence, plus a poise in the way he carries himself that is attractive. Frankly, I doubt that I'd find Alagna sexy if it weren't for the singing. It's the total package that's so appealing. Don't worry about it, Chris, it's purely a he/she thing; I've never understood why men thought Uma Thurman was a hottie. And I agree with Lorna -- this Aida was very satisfying.

Pete, I hope that PBS program will be repeated; I didn't even know it was on. Did they refer to the set as "the machine"? Large brown planks that could be moved and manipulated? If so, that's the current Ring. Yes, very expensive, but remember that one set was used for four operas, not just one. I remember that one of the simulcasts -- I'm pretty sure it was Siegfried -- was delayed 45 minutes because one of the planks wasn't receiving its computer signals.

I wonder if anyone has ever done one of those bare-stage productions of Aida. I don't see how it could be possible.

Opera Roanoke did a "concert" version a few years back, because you just can't stange Aida in a small auditorium...and about 10 years ago in Salzberg (yes, Mozart's Salzberg) I saw the weirdest production ever...semi modern dress with the triumphal march made up of guys in khaki uniforms peddling toy tanks around the stage. There were a lot of other little "modern" touches...Radames made his first act entrance dribbling a basketball...the local European audience applauded the singers and the booed the director...

Yes, you mentioned those toy tanks before, and that is something I don't even want to think about. Ugh.

About Alagna...he's handsome from the neck down. His hair is a mess and his facial features are nothing special, but he has a good body. And yes, the singing is an essential part of the total picture. He may not quite have alpha-male status, but he's a very strong beta-plus.

It was the Walküre simulcast that was delayed so long because of computer signals. I was in the theater for that one, waiting for it to start.

In years past, it took me a long time to come around to Aida. I mean, I could hear the appeal of the big moments, but it didn't add up as a whole for me. What helped me was thinking of it as Verdi's "condensation" of the grand-opera genre -- the big voices set in conflicting relationships, the ballet, the spectacle and atmosphere -- but reduced to its essence, with little of the private lives of the characters. I could imagine a production stylized in a "monumental" way, with the characters' personal drama playing out against a hostile, uncaring environment.

A couple of rarities are coming up soon: Berlioz's huge grand opera Les Troyens, the fall of Troy followed by the Dido & Aeneas story, with Susan Graham as Dido. And Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, in its first Met production (yet to premiere), with Joyce DiDonato as Mary Queen of Scots.